Flexibility to Change the Solution: An Indicator of Problem Solving That Predicted 9th Grade Students’ Academic Achievement during Distance Learning, in Parallel to Reasoning Abilities and Parental Education

Abstract

The relation between academic achievement and various measurements of cognitive abilities, problem-solving skills and self-managed learning has been established in the research before the COVID-19 pandemic and distance learning. The aim of the current research was to analyze the extent to which these aspects predicted the educational achievement of 9th grade students (mean age 15.4 years) during distance learning, when students had to do relatively more tasks independently, organize their daily learning and deal with problems on their own. Relations between self-assessed problem-solving skills, self-management skills, tests of reasoning abilities and the results of diagnostic tests in Mathematics and Latvian were analyzed for n = 256 and n = 244 students, respectively. The results show that: (1) diagnostic test results in Mathematics are best predicted by the parental education level, fluid nonverbal reasoning and verbal reasoning; (2) the best predictors for the results in the diagnostic test in Latvian are parental education, flexibility to change the solution, fluid nonverbal reasoning and verbal reasoning; (3) self-management cannot significantly predict the results of either of the two tests, although it correlates to the results of the tests in both Mathematics and Latvian; (4) only one of the aspects of problem-solving, flexibility to change the solution, can significantly predict results in diagnostic tests. The results confirm the significance of cognitive abilities as an important predictor of academic achievement, as well as the role of parents’ education level. The results also suggest that the flexibility to change the solution, an aspect of problem-solving, might play a role in students’ success in academic tests.

Data of Students’ Skills and Academic Achievement Assessed During Covid-19 Indicate Risks for Inequality

“…However, it was interesting that students' selfreported level for available technical means to carry out distance learning was not significantly different, similarly to the results self-assessment measurements of self-management and problem-solving skills. Altogether, the current results confirm previously established role that cognitive abilities play regarding academic achievement (e. g., Hacatrjana, 2022;Kampa et al, 2021). Not tackling the challenges some students have with learning early enough may lead to even larger discrepancies and the students might find it harder to grasp increasingly complex curriculum, leading to risks of dropping out of school.…”

“…Research on educational and psychological aspects during the pandemic has been focused on various aspects, such as students' individual attitudes, well-being and academic outcomes (e. g., Hacatrjana, 2022;Scott et al, 2021), as well as risks of not returning to schools after the pandemic (UNESCO, 2020), and these results indicate that there were variations in how students and education systems (Barron Rodriguez et al, 2021;Lindblad et al, 2021;Morgan, 2022) dealt with distance learning. For some students it was easier to deal with distance learning than for others (Hacatrjana, 2021a).…”

Longitudinal Data of High-school Students’ Grades during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Relation to Their Skills

“…It is assumed that these variables would be also crucial for students to keep their academic performance during the pandemic. Indeed, it was shown that results of tests in Mathematics and in the native language (Latvian) at the end of primary school (9th grade) during the pandemic were related to reasoning abilities, selfassessed problem-solving skills, self-management skills, and parental education level (Hacatrjana, 2022). Similar results would be expected from the analysis of the academic achievement of 11th grade students.…”

“…In a study with high-school students it was discovered that students' self-directed learning skills, especially skills for using digital learning tools and planning skills, were sufficient during the distance learning, based on their own evaluations, though they admit to having problems with assessing their learning gaps (Lāma, 2021). Data from the pandemic period show that self-management skills were correlated to students' test results in math and language but were not statistically significant predictors of these results, compared to other variables (Hacatrjana, 2022).…”

“…Problem-solving skills can be defined, in the context of the current research, as a set of skills and operations performed by an individual that are applied to successfully understand the key concepts involved in the problem (e.g., a school task), to generate possible solutions and implement them, to be flexible in the process of solving the problem, and to evaluate the result. These skills are operationalized in the current research by two aspects of problem-solving that are self-evaluated by students: a) solution development and evaluation and b) flexibility to change the solution (Hacatrjana, 2022). Flexibility is a construct also studied in the specific field of mathematical problem-solving and it is shown to be related to academic outcomes (e.g., Hästö et al, 2019).…”